191 replies to this topic

[Sigilum Sanctum]

How about instead of arrogantly "suggesting" the president of a company do better by harassing him, you go through Tina, the community manager. You could also be patient. If thats too much to ask because of PGIs track record, why dont you just leave?

Honestly you people are insane. You're consumers, not board memebers at PGI. You shouldn't be surprised if the man blocks you because you're harassing him.

Edited by Sigilum Sanctum, 10 June 2015 - 07:12 AM.

[sycocys]

My only goal was to share the insight based on what I experienced from a short conversation with the guy for the people that don't engage in twitter. I expected the thread to be half filled with troll responses that barely pertained to the conversation, but a few people might actually enjoy hearing about the result of a conversation with the guy.
-
The forums used to be the majority - until they were abandoned by the dev team. That is my main point regarding that, the conversations USED to be pretty darn civil with no bitterness or trolling for the sake of trolling, what we have now is a direct result of their actions. Can I blame them for not wanting to come back? ...No and also Yes because if they had the initiative to suck it up they could turn it right back around here.

Also agree with the missing community manager part, but if you poke around those MH forums you'll see very quickly that the leads from every section of the development team all the way up to the CEO of the company engage with the players there. Their community manager does handle a lot of it, but every part of the team is a part of the discussions there across the board as well which makes that community feel very connected with the game and development even when changes happen many don't particularly agree with. You'll also notice a distinct lack of troll posts there, which is odd because much of that crowd is younger than the crowd we have here.

Either way, take from my experience what you will. How each person interprets it is up to them.

Sigilum Sanctum, on 10 June 2015 - 07:11 AM, said:

How about instead of arrogantly "suggesting" the president of a company do better by harassing him, you go through Tina, the community manager.

You might not understand this being you haven't been around since closed beta, but I remember when those of us that were testing actually had long back and forths directly with Russ and Paul on these very forums, and to go from that to what we have now is very disappointing.
I really don't feel like suggesting to the man that abandoned that plan, that he consider going back to that when parts of the game are struggling quite badly from the player's perspective is out of line one bit.

[Bill Lumbar]

LordBraxton, on 10 June 2015 - 06:32 AM, said:

I'm just going to have to make a twitter account just to be heard.

I simply refuse to do such things... in the end, and from the sounds of it, it really wouldn't matter much anyways.

[AlexEss]

sycocys, on 10 June 2015 - 07:19 AM, said:

Also agree with the missing community manager part, but if you poke around those MH forums you'll see very quickly that the leads from every section of the development team all the way up to the CEO of the company engage with the players there. Their community manager does handle a lot of it, but every part of the team is a part of the discussions there across the board as well which makes that community feel very connected with the game and development even when changes happen many don't particularly agree with. You'll also notice a distinct lack of troll posts there, which is odd because much of that crowd is younger than the crowd we have here.

Well the first problem is that you are a unreliable narrator seeing as you not only have a very clear agenda but was also as expressed by you.. wronged... We can simply not take your words at face value, that is why you get the leper treatment.

Secondly you can not compare the beta phase with this because.. A: much smaller amount of people to reach. Most of the very active on the forums. Compared to now when most people do in fact not visit the forums for one reason or another. B: Even the people who visit the forums feel that tere is no way to make their voice heard over the top 10%... Who instead makes enough noise for two forums.

And as i said (and you kind of misunderstood) the sort of structure needed for the kind of forum that MH has can not be done without a CM. There is a metric tone of work that goes in to setting it up and getting everyone on the ball. This community lacked a Cm for a very long time and thus no such structure is put in to place. Get a hold of Tina if you like to discuss the setting-up of such a system. Now there might not be enough people working for such a thing to be doable. We do not know... And until someone gets a insight in to the HR of PGI... It is a moot point.

So you badgering the CEO (btw go and try that stunt with Brevik and we will see how long you last before you get blocked) and getting a little slap on the wrist is pretty much par for the course. In fact the more stable things get... The less you will see. Russ have a open door policy in order to build trust... that is not the same as you setting up camp in his office with a big picket sign.

Did i make it more clear..?

Also a tiny pro tip for the future... If you like to be taken serious when tossing accusations... Try to remove your own hurt pride and agenda out of the initial post...

[Alan Davion]

XX Sulla XX, on 10 June 2015 - 06:20 AM, said:

The truth is there is not what the community wants there are many conflicting things many different parts of the community want. And many things some people want are incompatible with what other people want or are impractical or just bad. They have to sort through all of this and make the choices they think best.

Communications from PGI is still strong over all. But they cant take the time to debate every person on every idea they have.

Lord Scarlett Johan, on 10 June 2015 - 06:45 AM, said:

This is a very toxic and stubborn community with their set ways of how it should be done. You have the TRO TT guys that basically want a first person dice roller, you've arcade crowd that just want stompy robots, you've got your full Sim crowd, you've got the ones that want it to be a clone of MW2/3/4, etc.

This game has a rich history that's being extrapolated from a board game to make a first person shooter. The community doesn't even agree on all the rules of how they want to play TT. They want their pet set of rules in place, everyone else's opinions be damned. It was painfully obvious going through and seeing the personal pet builds and not new player friendly builds so many people were suggesting for the Trial Mech revamps.

So I can't blame him. I don't like the whole Twitter thing in general, but they do have a community manager now. I've seen her interact on reddit a good bit and as she starts to learn this game, we may start to see her more.

Instead of trying to get Russ' ear, try Tina's.

Rhazien, on 10 June 2015 - 06:50 AM, said:

Seeing the constant "PGI sucks" attitude that a lot of folks give on the forums, spewing venom with little constructive purpose (I am not referring to this thread), I'm not at all surprised he has no intention of coming back to engage with us here.
I see threads where someone IS constructive, offers a good idea for others to discuss, only to be hijacked by the same venom each time. It's like grade school at times.

I get it, some people are disillusioned with the game. I get some are angry. But it doesn't encourage PGI to listen to us when you let it creep into what could be a good conversation with valid points.

This is pretty much it exactly. The recent kerfluffle over trying to re-release Phoenix Wave 1 being a perfect example of the toxicity of the forum community, not to mention the TBR/SCR thing at exactly the same time. I have seriously never seen so much filth being thrown around before.

LordBraxton, on 10 June 2015 - 06:14 AM, said:

PGI's cow has protruding ribs and an empty belly. Let's milk this analogy.. shall we? If PGI can't summon the resources (or more likely the knowledgeable coders, like the ones that mass-quit because of russ) to overhaul MWO's core... this game will likely not last more than a couple more years. The game has drastically decreased in quality graphically, and that doesn't fly in todays market. They need to fix the graphics, collisions, and hit-reg, to keep players around. They also need to fix the economy and NPE to bring in fresh blood. They've needed to do this for 2.5 years now and all we got are more mechs and a terrible attempt at CW.

And this right here is a perfect example of the hole PGI has gotten themselves dug into. They need money to pay the people to fix the stuff that's been broke since forever, but they need to sell mechs/mc in order to get that money, and with the recent quirks on the TBR/SCR, a lot of clan players are less inclined to buy stuff, such as wave 3 and simply wait for the c-bill release.

That's a huge hit to PGI's wallet right there.

Then, as with my previous statement, there was the poll over Phoenix 1. PGI could have gotten a pretty good windfall from that alone, but the venom over the whole 'exclusivity' thing, not to mention the TBR/SCR got the kibosh put down pretty hard on that.

As for the steam release, well I'm willing to bet that a lot of people that use that are completionists/collectors. They'll be able to get the Clan Invasion (I) and IS Resistance ( R ) stuff pretty easily, but what if they see one of those (P) mechs? Wouldn't it stand to reason they'd want that too?

And that goes right back to the whole stupid 'exclusivity' BS.

I've never seen a vicious circle as big as all this. I could say something more, but I'm hesitant to do so without adding fuel to the fire.

[LordBraxton]

Alan Davion, on 10 June 2015 - 08:50 AM, said:

That's a huge hit to PGI's wallet right there.

Then, as with my previous statement, there was the poll over Phoenix 1. PGI could have gotten a pretty good windfall from that alone, but the venom over the whole 'exclusivity' thing, not to mention the TBR/SCR got the kibosh put down pretty hard on that.

As for the steam release, well I'm willing to bet that a lot of people that use that are completionists/collectors. They'll be able to get the Clan Invasion (I) and IS Resistance ( R ) stuff pretty easily, but what if they see one of those (P) mechs? Wouldn't it stand to reason they'd want that too?

And that goes right back to the whole stupid 'exclusivity' BS.

I've never seen a vicious circle as big as all this. I could say something more, but I'm hesitant to do so without adding fuel to the fire.

I agree with your post, and PGI has dug this hole over the course of 3 years, by rescinding promises, removing features, and taking ages to adjust balance. MWO has made lateral progress across its lifespan, as it's made huge strides in some areas (content quantity) and suffered massive steps back elsewhere (content quality...) At this point they've burned too much good will. Nobody would have complained about the Phoenix mechs if PGI hadn't a LOOONG history of false promises. You reap what you sow Russ! (not that he ever comes here)

Edited by LordBraxton, 10 June 2015 - 08:54 AM.

[MechaBattler]

Before the reset to the CW map. We didn't have a problem finding groups to drop against on the Liao border. Now we're lucky if one of the Davion units wants to drop against us. And there's barely any pugs to draw on.

When are they going to do another Town Hall? I think people would like to express and have their concerns over CW addressed.

[Gas Guzzler]

Its funny reading some of these twitter conversations. Some people try to tell Russ how to run the company and what to do like they somehow know what they are doing. I would actually like to see what videogames some of these people have developed as they tell Russ how to develop this one. It is pretty sad really, if you guys think acting like a know it all and being condescending with Russ over twitter is going to somehow convince him to see your point, you are sorely mistaken. You have to be political about this kind of thing and beat around the bush, instead of just spewing venom, because that is just going to get you right where you ended up.

In any case, the new game mode doesn't really sound like CW, so you are wrong there.

Also, I don't really care about what Gazillion does with Marvel. They apparently have 200-500 employees. Of course things are going to be released quicker. PGI has what, 50? Apples to oranges.

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 10 June 2015 - 09:07 AM.

[Corbenik]

XX Sulla XX, on 10 June 2015 - 06:20 AM, said:

The truth is there is not what the community wants there are many conflicting things many different parts of the community want. And many things some people want are incompatible with what other people want or are impractical or just bad. They have to sort through all of this and make the choices they think best.

Communications from PGI is still strong over all. But they cant take the time to debate every person on every idea they have.

Yup, and most of those people can't see that for themselves and just want someone to blame.

[Alistair Winter]

It's kind of hard to take this at face value since we can't see the conversation. For all I know, you could have been like "when will u fix dis game u ***** m0r0n" while telling us "I gently and respectfully inquired about his intentions."

So without getting into the tone of the conversation or why he blocked you, I'll focus on the supposed facts.

• No significant CW updates until 2016. Sad, but I anticipated this. We've seen no evidence of PVE, Solaris or even the 4v4 mode he talked about.
  
• New assault mode will be just like Invasion mode. Not surprising. He seems very much in love with his idea of Invasion, and has rejected all player-made suggestions about making it more dynamic and tactically complex. Paraphrased, the goal of Invasion is to have a big brawl inside the base in order to get to the generators.
  
• CW Beta 2 = fixing spawn camping. Well I can't say I'm surprised. What does "Beta 2" even mean?

I've got one more pre-order purchase on the way. Shadowcat and Arctic Cheetah. I was considering buying the Black Knight a la carte, but I just don't feel like I can justify it, based on the way things are headed. Who knows how long it will be around.

[Sjorpha]

Alan Davion, on 10 June 2015 - 08:50 AM, said:

And this right here is a perfect example of the hole PGI has gotten themselves dug into. They need money to pay the people to fix the stuff that's been broke since forever, but they need to sell mechs/mc in order to get that money, and with the recent quirks on the TBR/SCR, a lot of clan players are less inclined to buy stuff, such as wave 3 and simply wait for the c-bill release.

That's a huge hit to PGI's wallet right there.

On a contrary note, the nerfs to TBR and SCR showed me that PGI is actually trying their best to balance the factions, and that in turn made me buy wave 3. I would not have bought it if I thought it would be P2W. Now that I know PGI is willing to nerf those mechs if they turn out too powerful (very likely) it makes them more valuable in my eyes, overpowered mechs would just collect dust in my hangar and not be worth paying for.

I'm also much more comfortable with playing my own TBR and SCR now when they aren't quite as overpowered.

In short, not all customers get mad when mechs needing nerfs get nerfed, some of us like them better when they are balanced.

[Alistair Winter]

MechaBattler, on 10 June 2015 - 09:05 AM, said:

Before the reset to the CW map. We didn't have a problem finding groups to drop against on the Liao border. Now we're lucky if one of the Davion units wants to drop against us. And there's barely any pugs to draw on.
When are they going to do another Town Hall? I think people would like to express and have their concerns over CW addressed.

I don't think he likes to do the Town Hall meeting. I could very well be wrong about this, but he sounds so frustrated and irritated with the questions during those Town Hall meetings. At the end of those meetings, he sounds like he's about to just flip the table. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's just because he's been having bad days or I'm misinterpreting his tone.

[Dimento Graven]

sycocys, on 10 June 2015 - 05:46 AM, said:

I unfortunately can't copy/paste it because he blocked me at the end after I suggested he should once again engage with the community here at MWo, but here are some of the things I gathered from the conversation.

Sounds like things got heated, and there were feelings of 'intractability' on both ends, and Russ did the smart thing by not allowing an argument that would probably go on forever, to NOT go on.

Quote

1. CW won't get any real meaningful updates until 2015 - 6+ months from now. -Unless maybe the community bombs his twitter to light a fire under his rear end.-

Matter of opinion. I've seen some recent changes, and heard of some others that are upcoming that will have very distinct effects on strategy and tactics.

Quote

2. Russ thinks their current snails pace is more than acceptable in today's market.

-Even other small studios like Gazillion with Marvel Heroes update weekly and have in the 2 years (since alpha) nearly completely rebuilt their entire game core while constantly building out their game AND their store. Its a hotter (market) IP, but it also has a very hard working development staff.-

Updating every 2 weeks, is NOT a snails pace, by any means. So... Again, there's a differing of opinion there.

Quote

3. has zero intention of ever engaging with the community on the forums again.

-Sad, and mind boggling at the same time. But also explains the lack of direction in the production cycles. Again I'll reference the Marvel Heroes game, they have it sorted out on how to communicate with their players to keep the game on a good trajectory. Can also reference closed beta and even early open beta from this game some of us can remember that far back, to show they know how to do it but simply refuse to.-

Nor should he really, other than extremely rarely to post announcements, but let's be honest with ourselves here people, a lot of us (including me absolutely) have very firm, cemented opinions on certain things and debating them directly with us serves no purpose. It's better to allow designated representatives do that, and when they run across something we won't budge on, they can default to, "You may be right, but the management decision is 'X'.", thus allowing REASONABLE discussion to end.

Quote

4. Can't comprehend that his new attack/defense assault mode concept is exactly the same thing he put into CW for invasion being re-delivered as an update to an old mode.

-This I really don't know how to respond to, the vision he gave is exactly the same thing as invasion, how he can't see that is totally beyond me.-

Again, differing opinions. It's similar, but not exactly the same thing. While 1 and 1 put together make 11, it doesn't mean that 1+1 = 11.

Quote

5. Oh yes, his idea of the improvement for CW beta 2 is the spawn fixing that they built directly into the maps that they had people "working full time" to create.

- Honestly I don't see how this would have been an issue at all if they simply engaged with the community to find out what their desires for the mode were in the first place. I don't recall ever reading people looking for dota maps and channeled blob assault myself. Just feels like a Russ, "I need this to be more e-sport arena" situation that dragged out into 5 maps because of the continual ignoring of the community.-

No opinion on the matter, but I do think this game would be better served if it had a mode that could function as an e-sport arena.

Quote

My opinons are inside the - -

I'm not crying out that the sky is falling, just that after this short conversation I feel like I have a much better grasp on what the future of this game holds and how much confidence I can personally put into the leadership of this game. Very disappointed that the guy that is supposed to be leading this studio would block someone for suggesting he actually go back and start actively engaging the community that cares about the game, probably more disappointed in that than the total lack of a real plan for the future of the game.

Anyhow, I'll let this end here. Just thought some of you guys and gals that don't twitter would be interested to know how a conversation with Russ can go, wish I had anticipated him acting like a child and blocking me so I could have screen captured the posts directly for you.

Meh... I'm mostly neutral when it comes to Russ. He's done some things that in my opinion are good, and some that I think weren't so good, BUT, we still have big stompy robots, and the game is improving.

Just a few of the things I'm happy about:

12v12
NO MORE ******** maximum 4 man pre-made groups
CW exists, a work in progress, but it exists!
Lots of 'mechs available to pilot (though I typically only pilot gauss builds)

Just a few of the things I'd like to see fixed:

Kill elo, it has failed in my opinion.
Russ? Remember that maximum 2 minute wait in CW queues you had proposed way back when that everybody pitched a fit about? Um... Could we go back and try that? PLEASE?!?!
F'ing gauss charge cycle.
F'ing no gauss ammo, uncharged gauss rifles blowing up.
Need some real unit management/friends list management tools (at the very least show last logged in time for all members)
(many, many more)

Edited by Dimento Graven, 10 June 2015 - 09:15 AM.

[cSand]

wait



who cares?

[Mystere]

PappySmurf, on 10 June 2015 - 06:52 AM, said:

Russ and Brian are not real devs they are at best dev game modders PGI has no clue why there failing and when told why they just ignore everyone or ban them or the mods place all the posts in K-town to be ignored further.

I personally gave up on the devs and PGI right after Closed beta and I see no reason to spend any more money on this game until it does a 360 and turns back into MechWarrior/battletech with a new MSN gamming zone and leagues and all the cool things in solo and multiplayer that MechWarrior2-MechWarrior4 had.

But you should like Russ' ideas. Both of you like eSports!

[Alan Davion]

Sjorpha, on 10 June 2015 - 09:11 AM, said:

On a contrary note, the nerfs to TBR and SCR showed me that PGI is actually trying their best to balance the factions, and that in turn made me buy wave 3. I would not have bought it if I thought it would be P2W. Now that I know PGI is willing to nerf those mechs if they turn out too powerful (very likely) it makes them more valuable in my eyes, overpowered mechs would just collect dust in my hangar and not be worth paying for.

I'm also much more comfortable with playing my own TBR and SCR now when they aren't quite as overpowered.

In short, not all customers get mad when mechs needing nerfs get nerfed, some of us like them better when they are balanced.

I applaud you sir for saying that. I figured there would be some people that felt that way, but I think you'll agree that the venom spewed by so many others on the subject kind of put a dark cloud over the Clan portion of the community.

I agree that not all customers get upset over this sort of thing. I for one almost never used the ER lasers, so their increased duration didn't really affect me, if at all.

What did affect me is the arrogance of some of the Phoenix owners in the community.

[Mystere]

Sigilum Sanctum, on 10 June 2015 - 07:11 AM, said:

How about instead of arrogantly "suggesting" the president of a company do better by harassing him, you go through Tina, the community manager. You could also be patient. If thats too much to ask because of PGIs track record, why dont you just leave?

Honestly you people are insane. You're consumers, not board memebers at PGI. You shouldn't be surprised if the man blocks you because you're harassing him.

I blame that on the "Customer is always right!" mentality gone berserk.

[Praehotec8]

sycocys, on 10 June 2015 - 06:47 AM, said:

He left a troll response when I first suggested it so I responded with a link to https://forums.marvelheroes.com/ so he could research a company that does it correctly and a couple messages encouraging him to rethink his lack of engagement.

If you can't see how this could be construed as offensive, you might need to think things through a bit. Regardless of whether or not you are correct, or how other companies do things, essentially what you are doing is walking up to a person, telling them they are doing a bad job, and pointing at a competitor, and saying, "look at how much better they are than you."

I don't know about you, but if you did that to me, my first response wouldn't be, "oh you know what, you're right, I'm doing a terrible job compared to them, thanks for letting me know!" My (and most others) initial response would be defensive and offended. I don't know if you have a profession or not, but when someone works hard and tries their best at what they do, intimating that they do a poor job is hurtful whether meant intentionally or not.

Certainly, criticism is a valuable part of improving something, but there are tactful ways to provide criticism, and unfortunately, this is not one of them. It's up to you how you want to interact with people, but (and I don't mean to be offensive to you either) it just strikes me as odd that you felt you can criticize someone in such a manner, and then act suprised when that person no longer wants to talk to you anymore...

[Innocent]

I am surprised they don't shut the forums down. No information is deciminated from here and they don't care what forumites have to say. PGI does not update the information on the website other than sales and challenges. They do not advertise to try and get more players. It is almost like they don't want their game to grow (with a larger player base they would have more money and it would remove the excuse for slow development).

[Lexx]

sycocys, on 10 June 2015 - 05:46 AM, said:

I unfortunately can't copy/paste it because he blocked me at the end after I suggested he should once again engage with the community here at MWo, but here are some of the things I gathered from the conversation.

1. CW won't get any real meaningful updates until 2015 - 6+ months from now. -Unless maybe the community bombs his twitter to light a fire under his rear end.-

2. Russ thinks their current snails pace is more than acceptable in today's market.

-Even other small studios like Gazillion with Marvel Heroes update weekly and have in the 2 years (since alpha) nearly completely rebuilt their entire game core while constantly building out their game AND their store. Its a hotter (market) IP, but it also has a very hard working development staff.-

3. has zero intention of ever engaging with the community on the forums again.

-Sad, and mind boggling at the same time. But also explains the lack of direction in the production cycles. Again I'll reference the Marvel Heroes game, they have it sorted out on how to communicate with their players to keep the game on a good trajectory. Can also reference closed beta and even early open beta from this game some of us can remember that far back, to show they know how to do it but simply refuse to.-

4. Can't comprehend that his new attack/defense assault mode concept is exactly the same thing he put into CW for invasion being re-delivered as an update to an old mode.

-This I really don't know how to respond to, the vision he gave is exactly the same thing as invasion, how he can't see that is totally beyond me.-

5. Oh yes, his idea of the improvement for CW beta 2 is the spawn fixing that they built directly into the maps that they had people "working full time" to create.

- Honestly I don't see how this would have been an issue at all if they simply engaged with the community to find out what their desires for the mode were in the first place. I don't recall ever reading people looking for dota maps and channeled blob assault myself. Just feels like a Russ, "I need this to be more e-sport arena" situation that dragged out into 5 maps because of the continual ignoring of the community.-

My opinons are inside the - -

I'm not crying out that the sky is falling, just that after this short conversation I feel like I have a much better grasp on what the future of this game holds and how much confidence I can personally put into the leadership of this game. Very disappointed that the guy that is supposed to be leading this studio would block someone for suggesting he actually go back and start actively engaging the community that cares about the game, probably more disappointed in that than the total lack of a real plan for the future of the game.

Anyhow, I'll let this end here. Just thought some of you guys and gals that don't twitter would be interested to know how a conversation with Russ can go, wish I had anticipated him acting like a child and blocking me so I could have screen captured the posts directly for you.

I'm surprised Russ talked to you for as long as he did. I'm not surprised he blocked you after this conversation.

Judging my the answers he gave, it's not hard to guess what the questions were. It would seem every one of them was fishing for a negative response, just so you could post on the forums and try to make him look bad.

In my opinion, you were being a total d-bag to Russ and I am surprised he tolerated you for as long as he did.